Funding Rooftop Solar Startup Oorjan Raises 450K in Seed Funding

Mumbai-based rooftop solar platform, Oorjan Cleantech, has raised $450,000 in seed funding led by Globevestor. A group of senior directors in banks and financial services companies, including Sayandev Chakravartti, Aditya Sharma, Nisha Pillai and Mayur Bhat, also joined the round.

Founded in November 2014, Oorjan is bringing together the power of cleantech, fintech and IoT to change the way masses adopt rooftop solar technology in India, predicted to be nearly a $40 billion market by 2022.

Their solution is an integrated, managed platform that brings together all stakeholders, including suppliers, installers & financiers of rooftop solar photovoltaic systems, while building a single brand for consumers to interface with.

A customer just needs to connect with Oorjan, and they take care of the design, installation, financing, approvals, ongoing monitoring and maintenance of the solar system.

The company already has operations in 4 cities, namely Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru and Chennai, has completed around 70 projects till date, and estimates revenues for 2017-18 at INR 15 Cr. The seed funding will be used by the startup to scale operations, augment sales efforts and further build their technology advantage.

Talking about the investment, Ankur Shrivastava, Partner at Globevestor said, “There is no doubt that solar is the way of the future. India is witnessing a joining of forces & commitment from government, industry, manufacturers and entrepreneurs, which has brought momentum to the sector and makes now a great time to invest in it.

The seed funding will be used by the startup to scale operations, augment sales efforts and further build their technology advantage.

India is witnessing a joining of forces & commitment from government, industry, manufacturers and entrepreneurs, which has brought momentum to the sector and makes now a great time to invest in it.

Oorjan has a strong, accomplished team with relevant experience across solar, financing & technology. And their approach of owning the customer, while bringing together all stakeholders through their platform, is the right way to penetrate and grow the market.”

Oorjan is co-founded by Roli Gupta and Gautam Das, and is supported by Hrishikesh Deshpande, a team that hails from IIT Bombay, Stanford, Berkeley and ISB, and has over 40+ years of experience at Areva Solar, Citigroup, Schlumberger and OpenTable.

Roli was recognized as 50 Most Influential Solar Leaders in 2015 and Hrishikesh was a co-founder of JustChalo, which was acquired by OpenTable in 2013. Oorjan was also selected among the top-10 women-led startups last year by the Anita Borg Foundation and Government of India.

Roli Gupta, co-founder & CEO, also commented on the fundraise, “While India has great potential for solar, adoption has been traditionally limited due to a highly frictional experience for consumers. With the cost advantage on solar’s side now, we believe that technology and financing will play a major role in pushing adoption, and the current fundraise will enable us to invest in making the customer experience seamless. We’re building a core technology moat across lead generation, pre-sales experience, smart CRM & engagement, as well as in leveraging solar data at scale.”

This is the first round of investment raised by Oorjan. For Globevestor, this is their second bet on an IoT-related startup after their recent investment in Sensus Labs.